126 LUTHER BURBANK 



It is tedious to wait another term of years be- 

 fore going to the next hybridizing experiment 

 that will give a still better crop of seedlings from 

 which to make new selections. But of course 

 numberless experiments with other plants are 

 being carried out in the interval, and so the time 

 does not seem so long while it is passing as it 

 seems in retrospect. 



Let it suffice that after fifteen years of effort, 

 involving the collection of materials from all over 

 the globe, the hybridizing in the aggregate of 

 thousands of individuals, and successive selec- 

 tions among literal millions of seedlings, I was 

 at last rewarded by the production not merely 

 of one but of numerous varieties of hybrid 

 Opuntias that grow to enormous size, producing 

 an unbelievable quantity of succulent forage ; the 

 slabs of which are as free from spines or spicules 

 as a watermelon; and that produce enormous 

 quantities of delicious fruit. 



Some inkling, perhaps, of the difficulties of the 

 experiments through which this result was 

 achieved have been revealed in the preceding 

 pages. 



Something of the economic importance of the 

 achievement will be suggested in the pages that 

 follow. Here let it suffice to repeat that the series 

 of experiments in which the giant spineless fruit- 



